201er

Oh yeah, it's 2600. Doesn't really change the point though. Can't seem to edit to fix that. And danb, the highest altitude my POH says can produce 70% is 10,000ft at WOT and 2700RPM.

My POH says the expected cruise speed is the same whether best power or best economy mixture is set which seems to contradict the concept of best power. Is the difference in speed so insignificant or did they go wrong somewhere? Example: Economy: 6000ft 24.1" 2400RPM 75% 10.5GPH 164kts Best Power: 6000ft 24.1" 2400RPM 75% 12.3GPH 164kts According to the POH, you'd be nuts to waste 1.8GPH for no gain (unless needed strictly for cooling). Have you noticed a speed difference in reality though? Likewise I wonder if there is an actual speed difference between 23.3"/2700 and 26.8"/2400 because the latter saves .5GPH?

It's pretty simple to see why WOT makes sense by taking a look at the POH. 27" MP and 2200RPM produces 68% power. So pretty much from 2,000' DA and upward 27" is the most you can get and pulling the prop back to 2400 or 2200 will give you 75 or 68% power. Any higher and you'll need higher prop settings still. I can't imagine being lower than 2,000ft anywhere but the airport traffic pattern anyway so I may as well leave the throttle full on climb out and use the prop control in cruise to set power rather than throttle. By pulling the prop back you save a lot of gph compared to pulling the throttle back and maintaining a higher RPM to get the same equivalent power setting. And since LOP you inherently lose some power anyway, it seems you could be WOT down to sea level and set your power exclusively by prop and mixture to remain below 75%. Am I missing anything? Also how many of you use the Ram Air in a 201? I read a Mooney article that said it helps so little that the risk of running unfiltered air outweighs the 1/4" improvement in MP. Shadrach, I gotta check if it helps much with CHTs though!

Very interesting. So how low below 6 is ok to go? What's the lowest anyone here has gone? What is your bare minimum (say you're oil is low, you have none with you, gotta fly to your mech for oil change, what's the least oil you'll go on)?

My mechanic told me that the engine can run fine down to just a few quarts of oil so you have a good safety margin on the low end. But putting in anything over 6 is pointless cause it just gets blown back out. His advice was fill to 6, drop to 5, return to 6. The only reason I was letting it go further was to see how much it's dropping and to show my mech when I get to him. But when it got below 4.5 and I saw oil pressure a bit lower I decided not to wait any more.

Wow, I've been doing practically the opposite of you. Except for descents and landing, the throttle stays full the entire flight and I control power with the prop knob and mixture.

Dunno why the link didn't work the first time. Since I can't edit or delete the post, I'll try putting the link again:

Here are some of my first takeoff/landings in my new Mooney 201. What do you think of my pattern work? Don't rip me too much, I only had about 6 hours Mooney time prior to this. Lots more videos to come. Hope you enjoy.

Helpful advice about the pattern but I still don't see your point about MP vs RPM. What I understand is that when the "RPM below the prop-governing range, you have a fixed-pitch prop." (John Deakin). So when the throttle is back a ways (like in the pattern), throttle does directly control RPM just like a 172. How do you go about landing with trim in takeoff position? I've been finding myself needing to trim nearly all the way back to get the plane slow enough on short final and touchdown.

Sounds like the oil practically replaces itself between oil changes and then oil change too! So that's about 10 quarts every 25 hours!?

Huh? Throttle directly controls RPM in low power settings like during landing. Prop is full forward anyway, but there's not enough power to reach max RPM.

Since getting my Mooney M20J and the annual, I have flown about 10 hours. Oil was at 6 quarts starting out and was down to about 4.3 quarts when I added a quart to it. I was trying to hold off for just another hour because I'll be stopping by the mechanic and thought I'd do it then, but I was getting lower oil pressure (bottom of green arc) so I added a quart then. Comes out to about a quart for every 6 hours of operation. Does that sound about right to you? How often are you adding oil? How far do you let it go down before you add more?

I interpreted continous operation as anything but trasnitioning through that RPM. So for instance throttling back from 2000 to idle is transient whereas holding it for a few minutes in yellow arc is continous? I'm still unsure of WHY it's bad to be there so it's difficult for me to decide if it's ok or not to operate in yellow arc and for how long.

Well that's mainly the point I'm asking about, the "reduce power to land" stage. On final, going full idle doesn't give me as good of a descent control. 2000RPM+ doesn't give enough descent. It feels like just right would be somewhere in the yellow arc. So do you guys go from 2000+ to idle directly or do you fly some of the landing descent (not from altitude, just talking in the pattern) in the yellow range?

Wait so is it 14.9 or 15.1 times FF? I have 200HP Lycoming on '78 M20J. How come in your set up you didn't add RPM? Or were you trying to conserve on gas? For now I'm just trying to find out how to go fast without exceeding CHT (it doesn't seem to be so much of an issue to find a lower/leaner setting to save fuel)?

"Caution: avoid continuous operation between 1500 and 1950 RPM with power settings below 15" Hg manifold pressure." This is what it says in the POH and there is a yellow arc reminder on the RPM gauge. If this isn't enough, the plane rumbles to remind me if I venture into this range. So for now, I've been staying away entirely from operating in that range but what I've found is that it's right where I want to be during landing approaches. If I could hold the power at roughly 1700RPM during my pattern, I could make the whole thing go without reducing throttle till final. Since I'm not sure what "continous operation" is supposed to mean I've enitrely avoided throttling to the point where I get 1500-1950RPM for now until I can figure it out. What this forces me to do is to keep the power in to develop 2000RPM for the first part of descent in pattern and then I go directly to full idle (cause anything more puts me in the yellow). The trouble is that at idle it starts sinking again too much and I go back to 2000. If I could just use something in between it would make my life a whole lot easier. Am I over thinking this? Do you use 1500-1950 RPM in the pattern? What is the problem with this kind of operation anyway? Is there a good solution? PS sorry for so many questions all at once. I'm just discovering so much all at once because I've been doing a lot of flying this weekend.

Do you guys get performance equalling what the POH tells you (speed, climb, gph, ground roll) or do you think it is exaggerated? Anyone actually manage to clock a 201 going 201?

For what it's worth, here's my "how to wax a Mooney video" on my pilot youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/SoarBird134 I don't have much I can offer otherwise but as I've done with planes I've flown in the past, I'll be posting lots of videos of my flying adventures. I had a great time flying my Mooney for the first time since the whole purchasing, inspection, and instruction gig this weekend so as soon as I get a chance to process the footage, it'll be up on my channel. But I would be absolutely thrilled to see some real how to's from people who know what they're doing.

I'd like to thank everyone for their advice. I flew again today and tried some more LOP stuff (right now just playing with things and getting a feel for leaning and the plane since I just got it recently). I'll read the articles again cause after the tests I've done recently, they may apply to me afterall. When I read them, I didn't take them too seriously because I didn't think I could fly her Lean of Peak. Here's what I got today: 3000ft, 26", 2600RPM, 150ktas, 45LOP, 367CHT (hottest cylinder, others were near 340), 9.7GPH. What my %HP was I have no idea, but I'm guessing 75% based on what you guys tell me with FF. Let me add that density altitude was more like 4500ft. Here's the procedure I used to lean. Leveled off, left throttle full but pulled prop back to 2400RPM. I leaned mixture a reasonable ballpark toward peak. I set EDM700 for LOP and continued leaning through peak and until richest cylinder peaked. Then I continued leaning to 50LOP. I went past to test for roughness which occured by around 60LOP so I went back in to about 45-50LOP on richest cylinder. Fuel flow was reading about 8.5gph so I added RPM until I was close to 10GPH in hopes of achieving 75%. Then I closed the cowl flaps and was pretty happy the hot cylinder stayed below 380F. Here's a glimpse at the EGTs for all cyldiners at one moment after leaning: 1390, 1328, 1395, 1377. Peak was 1440. Should I be concerned about #2 running a lot leaner if engine isn't running rough? Am I doing things right? What am I at risk of screwing up if this is done incorrectly? Can I get any more speed out of her?

To the person who said to set by GPH. How does this correlate to altitude? If you set by fuel flow alone, wouldn't it mean you'll be more LOP at lower altitudes and less LOP at higher?

Already read all that. What I'm not liking is that pretty much the entire source of info about LOP operations comes down to the same group of people (GAMI and APS). If it's so great, then I don't understand why the manufacturers aren't recommending it or at least other pilot groups that reach the same conclusion independently. Also, most of the info about it seems to always point to continental. Anyone know of any good info for LOP on Lycoming in Mooney? Some power setting tables for LOP operations, graphs, etc? Cause I've seen nothing but continental based stuff. Yet it seems that the Lycoming has a better shot at running LOP with stock injectors. Anyone here gone TBO to TBO flying nothing but LOP? If I'm having these problems with CHT from 25-75 ROP, how did folks fly Mooneys for the last thiry years without engine analyzers or LOP?

I tried LOP today just to see how it goes and surprisingly I was getting 20F cooler CHT on hottest cylinder, cowl flaps closed, and still running smooth. The spread isn't perfect but reasonable without gamis! Didn't get rough till about 60 LOP but I wasn't too exact about it. So in this case, can you tell me what the target LOP temp is? Does it vary by %HP? Do you just go for the leanest LOP that you can get before the engine turns rough?

74657, not sure if the full story was posted elsewhere, but I'm just curious if you knew it wasn't locking or if it was a surprise? Did you have gear down light and mechanical indicator?

What keeps them shut when you close them? Doesn't airflow through the engine want to push them open?

Does anyone else have this problem or a solution? My Cowl flap knob was actually modified with a throttle control with a friction lock to help lock them in a given position. However, even with the friction lock set as tight as I can with both hands, the knob seems to find its way out about 2 inches during normal flight. Any ideas for keeping them closed besides tightening the friction lock even tighter?